Sunset Watch
by Kit Nougami
Summary: While the crew's all worried about their chores and skipping lookout duty, their bouncy Captain disappears. Zoro, who's been hooked into lookout duty again, goes looking for him. Short Oneshot.


Brilliant colors painted the sky in thousands of different shades of red, orange, yellow, a dab of pink or purple here and there. It was definitely a sight to be seen, considering the waters in the Grand Line were rarely ever calm enough to reflect the painted sky, playing along the slight waves, bouncing here and there, bidding the sun a warm farewell.

Yes, it was definitely a sight to simply drop whatever you were doing and watch. Except if you were the crew of the ever so famous, Thousand Sunny.

The deck was almost never as lively, almost the entire crew running to finish their jobs, hoping to be done before the others and sneak into their rooms. Argument after argument (from mostly our favorite Marimo and Ero-Cook) could be heard from miles off, while Usopp and Chopper desperately hoped the constant bickering wouldn't attract the (unseen and definitely not hidden, it was the ocean, after all) Marines.

After the anchors were dropped, sails were hoisted, ship was cleaned, and everything was packed up, the boys imediately stampeded their way toward the rooms. Only… to be stopped cold at the doorway by our favorite red-headed navigator.

Yes, it was time to decide lookout. Everyone in the crew unconsciously backed away from Sanji as he started squirming, claiming in a rather loud voice that his precious _"Robin-Chwaaan!" _whose turn it was to watch the ship, shouldn't be bothered with such meaningless activity.

Which, to Zoro, was faded out in to an annoying and rather high-pitched mumble, and he thought idly that the blond deserved a good sword up the arse. And, Zoro being Zoro, he 'mistook' that sign as instinct. Instinct to a swordsman was almost second nature. So before Sanji was even finished describing the absolute beauty of his two wonderful goddesses, he was knocked into the floor.

Which, Sanji countered with a shoe to the gut, Zoro with a blade (dull side, unfortunately, Captain's Orders since the last incident) to the ribs, Sanji with a sweep, and the whole package.

This gave just enough time for the others to sneak away. Funny how that works, huh? So, two heads slammed together later, Nami simply pulled out her secret weapon. Zoro's major debt. The swordsman cursed up a storm, stalking off to the nearest comfortable spot on the ship, and dropping onto the floor.

Nami nodded, obviously happy with the turn of events, though slightly annoyed with Sanji's newest announcement of 'beautiful when she's bossy' and the sorts, when she suddenly realized _why_ everything was running so smoothly.

"Where's Luffy?" Sanji abruptly stopped his noodling. Zoro's head shot up and, with a quick and quite meaningless glance around what was viewable of the ship, he pushed himself back onto his feet.

"Come to think of it, he disappeared a little before chores started…" Sanji muttered, mostly to himself, taking on a classic 'thinker' pose with his arms and furrowing his brows in annoyance.

"I'll find him," Zoro grumbled, turning to walk off without an explanation, looking only slightly in a better mood then before. Nami smirked, crossing her arms over her chest slyly, giggling in a way that said she knew what was going on and she'll charge you if you want to know, before turning on her heel and making her way to her room, followed closely by Sanji. She had to, quite literally, slam her door in the blond cook's face before he made his way to his.

Up on the deck, Zoro immediately made his way into the galley first, checking if Luffy suddenly changed his 'midnight snaking' strategy to… well… not midnight. He frowned when there was neither hide nor hair of the rubber Captain, and closed the door rather loudly, hoping to at least make the chef flinch. (Nami's room was soundproof, as she had blackmailed Franky into doing it the last time Luffy went on a sugar rush.)

But, as he didn't want to waste his energy bickering (for lack of a better word) with the chef so, reluctantly, he didn't stomp around and searched most of the other un-occupied rooms silently, hoping that they _were_ occupied. When none were, and there was no scuffling and giggling to signal one of Luffy's infamous sneak attacks, Zoro started to worry. Surely he would've heard if the rubber boy had fallen overboard… right?

_Right,_ he immediately thought, before he could he around to further doubting himself. Luffy wouldn't just fall overboard like that. Zoro knew his Captain. His frequent adventures into the ocean were really just when he was extremely bored, and always (though the rest of the crew doesn't seem to notice) within about five feet of the swordsman.

Zoro turned his head toward what was left of the sunset, still about a quarter to go. Despite his earlier rushed search efforts, he couldn't help but pause and stare at the sight for a few moments, leaning to his left, palm against the railing of the ship.

_We're sailing right for it,_ he thought idly. _That would be perfectly viewable from Luffy's figurehead sp-_ his thought abruptly stopped. He wouldn't be there. He would've been yelled at for not helping out with chores, surely. Someone _had_ to have cleaned over there.

Oh… wait. That was the area he and Sanji were arguing about. The blond cook didn't quite like it when Zoro hooked the least traveled, easiest cleaned part of the ship, and shirked his duty anyway. It wasn't like he didn't _always_ do that.

With a mildly irritated sigh, he made his way to the front of the ship, still keeping half an eye on the sunset. He came to the small clearing to have his guess confirmed, seeing the rubber captain sitting on one of the sun's rays (or lion's mane, as Franky calls it. The idiot.) leaning against the ray that was pointing towards the currently painted sky.

He rolled his eyes slightly, starting to open his mouth to call out to him (he found that yelling reprimands was quite useless, as Nami was sure to do it anyway) when he froze. His sharp ears picked up on a sound Zoro had never heard before. Well, never heard without some child-like squeal to it.

He shook his head, testing to see if the sound was all in his head, and furrowed his eyebrows together in confusion when it didn't stop. He was sure he wasn't making it up. As sure as he was about the swords by his side.

Luffy, his rubber annoyance of a Captain, was singing.

It wasn't quite the best singing, no. In fact, it was mostly humming, as if he didn't know most of the words. Which… he probably didn't. But it felt almost powerful, and kind of mesmerizing.

After several minutes of blank staring, Zoro finally 'awoke' enough to start moving again, walking up behind Luffy, about half an arm's distance away. The minute he opened his mouth, Luffy startled him by reaching back, without turning, and grabbing the swordsman's arms, pulling him closer and leaning back against his first mate.

Several minutes passed with Zoro gaping, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, completely lost for words, and Luffy singing contently, completely carefree. Finally, Zoro relaxed a bit, realizing that Luffy wasn't going to let go, and actually had to keep himself from leaning into the new position.

"You're singing," he said abruptly, only achieving a single pause from Luffy, enough to giggle in acknowledgement, before he started up again. "Special occasion?"

This time, Luffy did stop. He leaned his head back enough for the two to be able to see each other's faces, and Zoro almost groaned as he received one of Luffy's infamous 'duh!' looks, followed by an equally annoying and confusing answer of, "When someone dances, Zoro, it's better to have music, na?"

And, either not noticing or completely ignoring Zoro's questioning glance, he turned back out to the sea. Just as soon as he started to open his mouth again, Zoro gave a slight growl of annoyance and asked aloud, "Who's dancing? Everyone's gone to bed."

He expected another 'duh!' look, just because that was the way Luffy is, but he was given an amused chuckle in its stead. "She is, silly Zoro. She likes to dance when the sun leaves, and She likes me to sing for her."

Zoro, still confused, followed Luffy's gaze out over the waters and into the barest remains of the setting sun. He didn't see anyone out there, much less any dancing girls, and was about to ask again when Luffy once again started singing.

He was amazed at how quickly the realization came to him. He stared out into the waters, watching as the different colors rose and fell with the waves, changing their tones and fading in and out of view, _dancing_ along as the sun made its way below the horizon. And, if you had some imagination, the waves looked as if they were timed exactly to Luffy's song.

Zoro's eyes closed half way and he gave into the urge to yawn, not from exhaustion but more from content. He didn't know if it was he who moved his arms to drape lazily around Luffy's waist, or Luffy himself, but when he realized that they were there he decided that he didn't care. He let his chin rest on Luffy's shoulder and let his eyes fall the rest of the way closed, a small smile creeping onto his face as he listened to his Captain finish the song.

When he realized that the end of Luffy's song consisted of the boy falling asleep in his arms, he felt that he didn't mind keeping lookout standing for once. He ignored the irritating clicks from the camera (bought on the last island, _'women's intuition,'_ she said) behind him, and barely kept from falling asleep himself due to the song he couldn't quite get out of his head.

* * *

I'm imagining 'Hoist the Colors', the song at the beginning of a Pirate's of the Caribbean movie, but I left it open for imagination.

Anyway, I thought this one turned out good. The first oneshot of mine that I ever liked. (Not good with oneshots, unfortunately.) All my other stories I'm working on are multichapter, and since I have a habit of leaving stories halfway, I'm waiting until I finish, or nearly finish them to post anything...

Hope everyone enjoys! I won't ask ya to review, simply because anyone who _really_ wants to help me out or _really_ likes the story will hopefully tell me anyway. ^_^


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